Collateral
by Snows Of Yester-Year
Summary: The Avatar stands in the way of Equality, and no sacrifice is too great to remove her from the picture for good.


**CONTENT WARNINGS: Torture, character death.**

* * *

Korra couldn't help but think, as she and Bolin cautiously made their way down the narrow corridor, that the Equalists could really spring for some better lighting. At this point, torches would probably be better than the weak, swaying electric bulbs that hung on rusty chains from the ceiling, their flickering illumination failing to chase the dark out of the hallway's dankest crannies. An odd smell, some unholy mix of mold and decay and the smoke from cheap tobacco, hung in a murky pall, and nets of cobwebs swarmed in every corner.

"The Equalists aren't very neat, are they?" Bolin muttered in a weak attempt to mask his nerves, casting a jittery glance around them.

"Yeah, well, taking down the Bending elite is hard work," she said drily, stamping down the urge to clamp her hands over her nose and mouth to block out the stench. "I guess it doesn't leave much time for housekeeping."

Bolin shifted uncomfortably. "Mako should have come," he said, turning to look back over his shoulder at the direction they came from. "At least he'd have bending in here."

"Mako is going to be busy distracting the chief," Korra countered. "Just relax, okay? You're making me jumpy."

"Sorry."

"We have to figured out where they're storing those documents," she continued, slowing to a stop "All we know is that they're probably somewhere in this building."

"How do we know where, though?" he said, stopping a few steps ahead of her and turning to face her. "We can't exactly check in every room."

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as she focused her attention on the concrete floor the way the Chief showed her. She felt her senses extend slowly into the earth like the tendrils of tree roots seeking water, expanding her view far beyond that of the dingy hallway – the rest of the building melted into sight around her, the looming steel struts making it murky and dim. It was harder to "see" with metal, the refined nature of the earth wreaking havoc on her senses; what's worse, the floors appeared to be made out of wood, which meant that she could only "see" what was happening when vibrations fell near the metal supports.

Still, she wasn't expecting to find the ream of sensitive documents with her earth sense; she was just looking for patterns...and a way up.

"There's a stairwell..." she slowly lifted her hand and pointed towards it. "Over...wait, sorry, over _there_. We'll take it upstairs and see what we can find."

She opened her eyes. She was pointing directly at a solid wall.

"Oh," she deadpanned.

"It's fine," Bolin said, squinting at the hallway ahead of them. The grimy lightbulb a few feet in front of them was apparently the last working one in this stretch, and the rest of the hallway was drenched in thick, inly blackness, the shadows lurching ominously from the gaping maw of the passageway.

"Does the hallway branch off past there?"

"Looks like it."

"Let's try that, then," Bolin said in a cheerful voice, venturing boldly into the darkness. Korra rolled her eyes and followed, daring to light a small fire in her palm. The warm light from the flame provided them with a shallow, fluttering pool of vision, allowing them to see what was directly in front of them and very little else. They stuck close together, the rough fabric of his tunic occasionally brushing her arm as they walked.

"I think we're almost there," she murmured after a moment. "It wasn't that far ahead."

No sooner did the words slip from her tongue than did a loud, alarming clanging fill the hallway, the din bouncing around the walls and ceiling and pushing oppressively against their ears.

"That's the intruder alert!" Bolin yelled, and Korra swore. They knew.

"This way!" she shouted back, grabbing his hand with the one that wasn't currently occupied with a tongue of flame and jerking him along after her. They ran clumsily down the rest of the hallway, almost running smack into the wall at the dead end. Korra jerked them to the left at the last second, stumbling down the wing where she had seen the staircase. They couldn't go there, though – who knows who was coming down those stairs at this instant, looking for them?

Doors lined the hallway, though – they flashed past in the sputtering light that her Firebending provided, heavy metal-plated things that attested to the building's past life as a prison to punish those who committed the more minor crimes. They made her uneasy, and the last thing that she wanted was to barricade herself and one of her best friends behind them, but they didn't have a choice. Breaking away from him, she ran over to the closest one, grabbing the handle and twisting it – locked. Her palm burned from the friction, and she jerked back with a grimace.

"Try the doors!" she called to him over the continued cacophony – the alarm hadn't faded in the slightest, and she had to wonder who tripped it, and where the alarms were, and when the Equalists would reach them –

_Stop! _she snapped at herself, running down to the next door and trying it (also locked). Now was definitely not the time to panic. If she and Bolin didn't find a place to hide, they were dead.

Finally, the fourth door she tried cooperated with her desperation, the handle twisting and the door cracking open obligingly. She yelled Bolin's name, and he ran over, drawn to the light of her Firebending like a moth to flame. Without preamble, she seized his hand and plunged into the room, the door slamming shut behind them.

The alarm was suddenly very muffled and distant. Korra left the fire lit long enough to see where they were – a closet, wouldn't you know it – before extinguishing it, not wanting to risk any light leaking through the cracks in the door giving away from their position. In the blackness, the closet felt even smaller. The sounds of her and Bolin's heavy breathing was more noisy than the alarms, roaring in her ears louder than it had any right to be. Korra felt like she was suffocated, and for a wild, panicked moment she felt like she had been buried alive.

Perhaps sensing her panic, Bolin reached forward in the darkness, his hand accidentally bumping clumsily against her leg before finding hers. Their hands linked, and they wordlessly pulled strength from one another. His grip was hard and strong; hers was even harder, some of her fear transferring into the contact.

Suddenly, they heard shouts from the hallway. Bolin drew in a sharp breath, and the two fell into deadly silence, wordlessly praying to whatever spirits jumped to mind that they wouldn't be found.

A loud clanging sound and an earth-shaking bang reached them, making Korra jump. Bolin silently squeezed her hand.

The sounds came again. Almost too soft to hear, she heard him whisper a hoarse, "Oh, no."

The clanging and banging rang through the tiny room a third time, closer than before, and Korra suddenly realized what was happening.

She broke her hand away from him, but didn't have the time to get into a bending stance before the door to the closet swung open with a crash. Bright white electrical lights shone in, blinding them both for a terrifying second and giving the Equalists the opening they needed. Before either Korra or Bolin had the chance to do anything, they reached into the closet and dragged them both out. Cold metal rings were clamped around Korra's wrists, stinging her skin sharply where they pinched it.

She blinked desperately a few times, trying to erase the spots from her vision and get her bearings. Equalists completely surrounded them, no less than twenty people glaring at them, a few of them holding blazing hand-held electrical lights.

From the middle of the throng, a stocky man with thin, gray hair and a scruffy beard stepped forward, his black eyes glittering. "Well, then," he rasped slowly. "I see it wasn't a few rodents making that noise after all – just the next lowest thing. What the hell are you scumbags doing here?"

"This one looks like she's from the Water Tribes, sir," the man holding Korra said, shaking her roughly.

"Not just," he said smugly. He smirked at her. "You a Bender, girl?"

She set her jaw. "No."

He grabbed her hair and roughly jerked her head back so that she was looking up at him. She had never wanted so badly to impale someone on a shard of ice. She glared at him, her eyes turning glacial with rage.

"You're lying," he said slowly. "I wasn't born yesterday. We have a special treatment in store just for you, Avatar."

The threat sent a chill through her.

"And what about the other one?" he asked loudly to someone behind her, pushing her head down with more force than necessary.

"Earth, sir."

He grunted. "Well. Let's take the pieces of trash to the Lieutenant."

Korra was shoved roughly forward with a hard command to walk. She resisted briefly, but then two sets of hands clamped on her arms and dragged her forward, ignoring the resistance her dragging and backpeddling feet provided.

They made their way to the stairwell she saw earlier and started up. At least the stairs had lighting, although it was in the same vein as what was in the hallway earlier – still, dim lights are better than the inconsistent flashes of the Equalists' handheld ones.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked loudly, glaring at the back of the head of the man who'd done most of the talking.

"To the Lieutenant."

"Who's _that?" _

"He's Amon's second-in-command," he said, shooting her a hard look over his shoulder. "Now shut your damn mouth before I come back there and shut it for you."

She scowled. "You don't scare me."

He held up one hand to stop the party, and it came to an awkward, shuffling halt in the middle of the stairway. He walked down to Korra and, without preamble, punched her hard across the face before grabbing her hair and jerking her away from the men holding her, slamming her head into the wall. He let her slump down to the stairs, crumpled up like a ball of newsprint. Bolin made an angry noise, and there was the sound of a brief scuffle, followed by a dull thud.

"Keep these two under control," the man said, aggravation leaking into his voice. "I don't want to hear their whining all the way to the Lieutenants office."

They scooped Korra back up. Her head spun badly, a strange, warm dampness mixing into her hair, and she moved along with little resistance as she tried to get her bearings straight. Her mind was frantically sifting through her options, trying to find a way for her and Bolin to escape, wondering furiously why she had decided to try to steal back the files herself, straining to remember how much time they told Mako to wait before he was to assume –

They reached a landing and entered another hallway. The lighting here was better, bright and steady, but the harsh bulbs actually made Korra feel more uncomfortable than the unreliable yellowing things that had lit up the hallway downstairs. There were less doors up here, and they were made from heavy wood instead of metal. The group stopped in front of an innocuous door about halfway down the hall. The old man wormed his way to the front and rapped sharply on the door. Moments later, a firm voice told them to enter.

"The ones holding the intruders, come with me," the old man ordered. "The rest of you, get back to your posts."

There was a shuffling as most of the Equalists disbanded, and the heavy door swung open soundlessly. The man who stood there had goggles on, which made it hard for Korra to see where he was looking, but she saw the small, sinister smile creep across his face.

"Well," he said, "it's our lucky day, isn't it? Bring them in."

Korra was shoved forward with a grunt, and the door swung shut behind her and Bolin, sealing them in the room with echoing finality. She was pushed to her knees. The floor dug into her legs painfully. She tried to force herself to focus, but she still felt a bit dazed from the blow.

"If it isn't Avatar Korra," the Lieutenant said in his soft, low voice. A chill ran down her spine, and she glared defiantly up at him. "It's a shame, really. Amon wanted to take care of you himself, but he isn't going to argue with what the Universe has delivered us."

"...What are you going to do with me?" she asked, a tremor running through her voice.

He didn't respond. Only a chilling smile crossed his face.

"There..." she swallowed. "There isn't anything you _can _do. If you kill me, I'll just reincarnate!"

"Oh, we know," he said. "And we have had a plan in place for you for a very, very long time, Avatar Korra."

"...What...plan?"

The Lieutenant knelt in front of her so that their eyes were level. His gaze through the film of his goggles was steady and cold.

"Our resources tell us," he said, "that you have never been able to enter the Avatar State."

An odd chill arrested her.

"That is lucky in a sense," he continued, "given that you would be much more of a challenge to capture in such a state. But it also is unfortunate in a sense."

She swallowed. Her mouth was dry all of a sudden, and her heart fluttered weakly. "Wh...why is that?"

"Were you ever told what would happen if you were killed in the Avatar State?"

She drew in a sharp, sudden breath. "No."

"Yes." He pushed himself to his feet. "The only way is for you to disappear from this world permanently, Avatar. Equality will never be achieved while you continue to poison the minds of the people with your propaganda, and the benders will never rest while you live. So we will have to end you."

"I've never entered the Avatar State," she asserted, and it was becoming difficult to keep the panic from bleeding into her voice. "There's no point, I –"

"There's a first time for everything," he cut in. He gestured to them men holding Bolin, and they dragged him closer, depositing him in the middle of the floor.

Korra's eyes widened. "No..."

"Until the Avatar masters the Avatar State," the Lieutenant said in a bored voice, "the mechanism is dependent on the whims of the Avatar and their surrounding." He pulled out one of his batons, taping one finger thoughtfully against the end. "The Avatar would enter if they were in physical distress – and, believe me, if it comes to that, we intend to put you in physical distress – but there was another way." He smiled again, and Korra wanted to burn his face away.

"The Avatar may enter the Avatar state," he finished, "if someone they care about is being hurt."

"No," she said again, her voice growing frantic, tears welling unbidden in her eyes. "No, no, no, please, he has nothing to do with –"

"I'm sorry," he said in the most unrepentant voice imaginable, "but this is bigger than the both of you."

There was a click, and fingers of bright blue lightning leapt up and down the baton, arcing through the air. The Lieutenant gave Bolin a look that was equal parts pity and disgust before kicking him onto his back and driving the ends of both batons into his chest.

Bolin and Korra screamed in tandem, voices ripping the air and mingling with the harsh sizzle of the batons. After a moment, the Lieutenant pulled back, glaring over at Korra.

"No glowing," he observed coldly, and he powered up the batons again.

"Stop!" she screamed. The Lieutenant ignored her, pressing the batons into Bolin again. "STOP!"

She was crying, pulling weakly at her restraints. All she could see through her tears was a blur of deadly blue light dancing around Bolin's convulsing form, the Lieutenant hovering above him.

"Please, stop this!"

The Lieutenant pulled back, turning to her again. "I'll stop when you enter the Avatar State."

"I'm _trying_!" she cried, hunched over. Her breath was coming hard, and her mind swam. An odd smell hung in the air, charred cloth and hair and things she didn't want to think about, and when she looked over at Bolin, he was staring at her with a blank expression.

"Korra..." he whispered distantly, his voice so soft she almost missed her name. "Korra...Mako...I..."

"Enter the Avatar State and he will go free," the Lieutenant said loudly, and he switched on his batons once again.

"_NO!"_

The crackle of electricity was deafening to her, second only to her own mournful cry. Bolin's voice had given out, and she could only sit on the floor in a broken heap, sobs wracking her body as she whispered her plea in a mantra. "Stop...stop..._stop..."_

The air of the room was choking to her. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She wished she could die in Bolin's place. It was all her fault that he was here – why did she get him tangled up in this.

"Stop," she whispered again. "Please..._please_...leave him alone...I'll...I'll do whatever you want, j-just...please, _stop..._"

The Lieutenant ignored her and powered down his batons, seemingly heedless to her sobs as he studied Bolin with a detached expression on his face. He frowned, kneeling down to press his fingers against the Earthbender's jugular.

"Gone," he said gruffly.

Korra let out a mournful wail.

"Shut her up."

One of the Equalists circled closer to her and kicked her hard in the head. She slumped over uselessly, tears still flowing freely. "Bolin..." she choked, her voice barely a whisper. "Oh, _Bolin_..."

"This wouldn't have happened if you had entered the Avatar State," the Lieutenant said curtly.

She said nothing. She felt hollow. Her heart was twisted into painful knots in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to die there.

"Take her to the cells," he ordered the Equalists. "You'll break, Avatar, trust me. We have many ways of making you break, and we've only just gotten started."


End file.
